The Art of Forgetting
by Gail Lucinda Autor
Summary: While at the Leaky Cauldron, Hermione Granger runs into a face she never thought she'd see again. A Dramoine of sorts, plus Hermoine/Ron shipping. Rated T for drinking and my paranoia. Oneshot. Read and review, please!


Hermoine Granger drummed her fingers on the bar counter of the Leaky Cauldron as she mulled over what to order. Ron had a late order of Artemis's Arrowstreaks, the latest broomstick craze, coming in at Quality Quidditch Supplies. However, Flourish and Blotts, which she now owned, had closed right on time, and she was killing time while she waited for her fiancé to get off of work.

"Excuse me, ma'am," said Tom, interrupting her thoughts. He set a shot of firewhiskey down in front of her. "The gentleman down the bar bought you a drink." Hermoine took it from the bartender with a nod and smile of thanks before looking down the counter out of the corner of her eye.

She almost fell off her barstool.

There, not ten feet away from her, nonchalantly sipping his own firewhiskey, sat Draco Malfoy. He glanced at her and lifted his drink in salute.

Hermoine slid off of her stool and moved over to him. He knocked back the last of his shot and held up a finger for her to wait as he swallowed, before placing the shot-glass on the counter and motioning for a refill from Tom.

"Miss Hermoine Granger," he said, much of the familiar drawl gone from his voice. Rather than cocky and arrogant, he sounded almost tired. He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it in a polite gesture, noting the glimmering stone on her fourth finger. "Soon to be Mrs. Ronald Weasly, I presume," he added, releasing her hand.

Cautiously she slid onto the stool next to him. "Yes, that's right," she replied carefully. "How are you, Mr. Malfoy?"

"Absolutely horrid," he answered in a straightforward, almost cheerful tone that she suspected was brought on by the drink he was now sucking down. For all she knew, rather than being his second, it was his fourth or fifth. "And yourself?" he continued as an afterthought.

"Quite well, I suppose," she said drily, watching as the glass left his lips, empty, and was swept away by Tom almost instantly. "How many of those have you had tonight?" she inquired, her eyes following the hateful liquid back into his hand, and then his mouth. Her own drink sat, untouched, on the counter. Hermoine Granger did not like alcohol.

"Five or six," he told her flatly, draining half of the shot in one gulp. "I've lost count."

"And this is normal."

"Oh, no," he responded, looking at her around the glass that hovered at his mouth. "I usually have twice this many."

"You're going to ruin your health," Hermoine warned, looking slightly aghast.

"Pardon me, Miss Granger, but I don't see how that's any of your business," he said, an edge to his voice. He didn't sound drunk at all, she realized. He must have developed a tolerance for it.

"Perhaps it isn't," she conceded. A moment of silence followed as Draco gulped at his drink. The liquid seared the back of his throat, a sensation that had grown tiresome after so many nights full of it, but there was nothing stronger to help him forget. The glass hit the counter again, was refilled, and back up to his mouth, being drained by a poor empty soul who desperately needed to get drunk so he could go home.

The cycle repeated twice more before Hermoine, who still had not touched her own drink, spoke again. "I realize that it is, in fact, none of my business, Mr. Malfoy, but how can you stand to drink so much?" she wanted to know, genuinely curious.

He swallowed and made a soft 'ah' noise. "That's good stuff," he murmured, almost to himself, his words at last beginning to sound a little slurred. He waited a moment before replying: "How can you stand to drink so little?"

"I've never liked alcohol," she confessed, sliding her glass absently around with one hand. "And there are...other...ways of forgetting," she added with a little difficulty.

Draco chuckled darkly as Tom came by to take his glass again. "Not much escapes you, does it, Granger?"

Hermoine shrugged. "There's a reason I was top of our class," she pointed out.

"You're changing the subject."

"I suppose I am. Go on."

He watched his drink approach and took a gulp before replying. "You're correct," he said carefully. "I drink to forget. And the more I drink, the harder it is. I hate the taste and I hate that burning feeling it gives you. But I can't seem to stop." Draco sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Every time I close my eyes, I see them. All of them. The corpses." He seemed to choke on the words. "The drinks hardly help anymore. But I have to try." His eyes were pleading as he looked at her, asking for understanding, maybe even forgiveness. There was another moment of silence, this time sad, as he continued to drink. She waited till the glass hit the counter, then gently tugged it from his hand.

"You've had enough," Hermoine intoned, gently but firmly. "You may not be my favorite person in the world, Mr. Malfoy, but I don't like to see people suffer."

"I believe you," Draco replied softly. The barstool made a loud scraping sound as he stood up. "Thank you, Miss Granger. It was nice to speak with you again." He dropped a handful of coins on the counter, kissed her cheek, and Disapparated.

Hermoine never heard from him again. She hoped it was because he'd stopped drinking, but somehow she doubted it. He had probably just changed bars. Several years later, when she had a second ring on her finger and a baby on her hip, her husband walked in and laid a newspaper on the table. He appeared solemn and almost confused. She kissed his cheek and passed him their daughter before going to pick up the _Daily Prophet _he'd brought home.

"Go to the obituaries," Ron said softly as he came up behind her. He rested a hand on her hip and laid his cheek on her head as she obeyed quietly, worried.

"Oh," she whispered, clapping a hand over her mouth. Draco Malfoy had died. He'd been flying his broomstick while dangerously drunk, the obituary read. She turned and looked to her husband. Apparently he was just as at a loss for an appropriate reaction as she was.

"We'll have to go to the funeral," she mumbled into his shirt. Ron kissed her hair and agreed softly. For all he'd hated Draco, he knew that it wouldn't feel right if they didn't attend. And so, two days later, dressed all in black, they joined a tiny group of mourners at Malfoy Manor. The ceremony was held outside. The day was as grey as the young man's eyes had been.

And there, in the cold of a November day, at a place to which she'd hoped she'd never return, Hermoine Granger wept for two people.

She wept for the boy who had done so many terrible things, out of cowardice and the way he was raised.

And she wept for the boy whom she had met in a bar on Diagon Alley, who had been trying so hard to forget.


End file.
